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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nikolai" data-source="post: 1473105" data-attributes="member: 10130">I just want to try and defend my remarks, which no-one has agreed with so far...I've almost finished the first book, I'm up to Lothlorien. So I've only a provisional opinion at the moment - and I will keep reading. So far it looks to me like the begining of The Sword in the Stone tacked on to a retread of Fellowship. I realise the series is supposed to be very influential and highly thought of, but so far I can't see it. Much of what's happening seems to be recycling a series of genre cliches.Tolkien did adopt stuff from older traditions. But he did inovate a lot too. Much of the "quest to prevent an evil lord from world domination" which is played out as an extended travelog is original. So far the books to me seems to be staying very close to Tolkien's model. I don't think this is as bad a criticism as it sounds, I think Williams likely intended it as a piece of genre writing in that vein, and with that in mind The Dragonbone Chair is about as good as it gets. I think the similarities are much, much closer and more pervasive. Firstly, you have the writing style: writting in a third person limited narrative, Point of View shifts, characters thoughts in italics. The whole stylistic aspect really was adopted wholesale by Martin. I think the only real difference was his one chapter per Point of View rule.Secondly, you have the setting. This is very similar too, above and beyond the standard fantasy elements: several kingdoms under a high king, war between them breaking out, the coming of winter with famine etc., a supernatural threat from the north. Feudal aspects of the setting are copied as is court intrigue (even with positions like the King's Hand). There's also limited magic, mysterious fey beings who have long since abandoned contact with man (Children of the Forest/Sithi).Thirdly, you have specific plot elements. I don't really want to list these, because there are a lot of them and they are spoilers. But various aspects of The Dragonbone Chair keep on cropping up in A Song of Ice and Fire. We're talking about very specific motifs which are sometimes copied, sometimes expanded upon and sometimes taken in a new direction by Martin. This really was a surprise for me and kept on surprising me as things I had sort of seen before in Martin, kept happening.Fourthly, and the killer point, Martin has said that Williams' series got him thinking about how to do fantasy. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/feature/11609/104-7867210-6435913" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/feature/11609/104-7867210-6435913</a>I'm not saying Martin has ripped off Williams, lots of things are very different. But Williams' series was clearly a major inspiration. For what it's worth I think A Song of Ice and Fire is better than The Dragonbone Chair, it's interesting to see where some of the ideas came from.</blockquote>

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